A bill to spend billions on a public school payment and what Texas owes for Medicaid is headed to Gov. Rick Perry’s desk now that the Texas House and Senate have signed off on the emergency budgeting.

The bill, HB 10, appropriates $6.6 billion in state funds, including $4.5 billion that the state owed in Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor.

“We will not pay our providers the day after tomorrow if we don’t pass this bill,” said state Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, the House Appropriations Committee chairman. “This bill has to go to the comptroller today. And the comptroller will certify that there are funds available like she does every appropriations bill. Then that has to go to the governor’s desk for the governor’s signature.”

The bill received unanimous approval.

“This bill will allow us to meet our current obligations in health care and education and move forward with a budget that increases transparency over the next two years,” House Speaker Joe Straus said in an emailed statement.

The bill got unanimous approval when the House first passed it as well. Democrats had been poised to make a stand on wanting to put money toward education, given that the state cut $5.4 billion during the 2011 session to help cover a $27 billion shortfall. They backed off in the House during the first vote after Pitts said a bipartisan group had been put together to negotiate possible spending on education.

The House voted to suspend the Texas Constitution to allow the vote on the bill before the 60th day of the session passed. The Senate then took up the bill and added the appropriation of $6.65 billion in federal funds, a matching amount that follows the expenditure of $4.5 billion in state general revenue for Medicaid costs.

“It’s not new money,” Pitts clarified for representatives regarding the federal money.

The Senate also voted to undo the deferral of $1.75 billion to public schools. During the last session, to cover the shortfall, lawmakers pushed the payday for public schools into the next two-year budgeting cycle, called the biennium.

“It is reversing what we did last session to balance our budget, that instead of making two payments in September for our schools. we’re making one, which is in August of this biennium, which is the normal time that we make the payment, and then the September payment will be made as usual,“ Pitts said. Pitts had planned on making the reversal in a later bill.

Because the Senate made changes to the bill, it returned to the House for final approval before the governor’s desk.

“As with all legislation, the governor will review the bill when it makes it to his desk,” Josh Havens, a spokesman for Perry’s office, said in an email.

The lawmakers may still have more IOU bills — called supplemental appropriation bills — including one to pay off the cost of about $160 million for wildfire fighting.